To Let
by Mrs S Eyre
Summary: Luka moved out in 14.16 "Truth Will Out"; so where did he go? WARNING - strong language.
1. Chapter 1

**Vacancy**

It was a lovely apartment. The agent showing him round had been at pains to overlook no aspect of its loveliness: the lovely hardwood floors, the lovely, ceiling height, arched windows with the lovely view the apartment's position on the fourth floor afforded, the window seats – which she had sat on in case he hadn't quite grasped the concept – the lovely retro styled bathroom which had been modelled on the bathroom of the designer's mother's house, circa 1911, ante bellum austerity and luxury combined, the up to the minute kitchen, small but perfectly formed, with built in fridge and freezer, a six burner hob and an oven which he probably wouldn't use, a microwave which he probably would, the lovely master bedroom and the small but ever so lovely second bedroom just right for a professional man such as himself to use as an office or for guests, the lovely abundance of power sockets throughout, the unutterable loveliness of the discreet downlighting, cool colours and air conditioning, the on site concierge and CCTV security. And how lovely was it that the owner, who was something financial, had had to go away at short notice on, well, on business and was likely to be gone for at least one … or two … years, depending. Depending, Luka thought, on how lenient the parole board was feeling, and so all the lovely furniture was included in the rent.

Lovely, lovely, lovely.

He hated it.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Not At Home**_

The contrast of the faded old patchwork quilt and the clean, pale subtlety of the room, ancient juxtaposed with modern, produced an effect any interior designer would have been proud of. This fact did not escape the new tenant of the apartment as he stepped back from the child's bed which was undeniably out of place here. Its incongruity went beyond juxtaposition to jarring. He was gratified by this fact because there was no part of him that wanted to think of this place as home. Quite what it was he didn't know and he was disinclined to think too much about it.

The quilt had been sewn by his grandmother whilst his mother was carrying Niko; it had been transferred to Luka and Niko had sulked for about a year about it. Luka tried to work out how long it had been folded up amongst his father's things before the old man had instructed Niko to dig it out so that Luka could take it back to Chicago for Joe – 30 years? More? Joe had fallen in love with it and it had had to be smuggled out of the – their - old apartment - home, it had had to be smuggled out of home, spit it out man – so that tonight, the start of his first whole weekend at Daddy's new place, he'd have something familiar.

He'd been here a month, and this was the first time their shifts had fallen such that father and son would be together for more than a day. He'd missed him so much it hurt. He missed the clutter, the sticky finger marks on furniture and walls, he missed stumbling over toys and shoes, he missed the smiles, the giggles, the hugs and tickling, the riotous bath times and bed time stories. Damn, he even missed the crying and diaper changes, the sudden and inexplicable decision on Joe's part that the apricots he couldn't get enough of the day before were now the devil's food, the diving at speed to remove precious objects from grasping hands. He missed it all.

All of it.

"It" wasn't Joe; "it" wasn't Abby, or the apartment. "It" was everything, it was what you had when the apartment was filled with Joe and with Abby and with him, "it" was Joe and Abby and him, the whole package, the package he thought they'd glued together between them with love and comfort and familiarity, and which made him smile at the thought that home was never four walls, a fact he'd known, he thought, almost from birth and had lost sight of after Vukovar.

"It" was gone. When, in the moments of self recrimination that were second nature to him, he told himself he'd walked away from it, the thought came, hard on those moments' heels, that what he'd walked away from was already broken, no longer felt like home, blown apart as that other home had been all those years ago. And the horror of it was that he found that first loss easier to understand than this one; he found it easier to grasp the smashed bones and masonry caused by a mortar shell than the smashed dreams and trust inflicted by his wife. He had not thought that the havoc would be wrought by the other half of his sky.

And, when he'd told her that too much had happened he knew she'd thought he meant between them. He'd thought so too at the time but now, as he plugged in the train night light by Joe's bed, he knew that he'd meant far more than that. "Just how much am I supposed to take?" he'd asked Janet Coburn, desperate and still raw from his father's death, and now tortured by whatever else it was she'd done that he didn't know about, to feel that somewhere in this mess he mattered, that he had a voice. How long was he supposed to wait for the truth? How much was he supposed to take? How many times, after life had knocked him down, was he supposed to get back on his feet; how much, after all these years, was too much?

He thought maybe he knew now.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you for the reviews – I can't say I'm finding this easy to write as we had so little to go on as far as Luka's feelings are concerned. This is a rather longer chapter and the timeline of the narrative skips around a little.

Nyc2005 - I don't think I'm up to the task of explaining the "full of hope" remark!

This chapter takes in some of the ground covered in this story:

.net/s/4406708/1/Ashamed

**Part 3 - Subsidence**

The word stared up at him from the Scrabble board.

C.H.E.A.T.

"3,4,1,1,1, that's 10, and triple word score makes it 30. I'm kicking your ass Dr Kovac, Sir. Well come on, you know this is a hospice right, I don't have time to wait while you figure this stuff out."

"You want to try playing in Croatian some time?"

"I'd still kick your ass."

R.A.G.E.

"1,1,2,1. 5 points."

"That the best you can do?"

"Right now, yes."

"Jesus, why do I waste my time with you?"

"No-one else will talk to you."

"Can it."

H.U.R.T.

"7, and the H on a double letter makes 11. You better have something good up your sleeve."

Luka didn't think he had anything up his sleeve, he didn't think he had anything anywhere. The sheer effort of not thinking about where he was and why was slowly consuming him.

L.O.N.E.L.Y

"1,1,1,1,1,4, double word, 18."

"Now you decide to make a fight of it when there are pretty much no tiles left."

"Just add up the scores."

B.E.L.I.E.V.E.

"That's 12, double letter on the L – 13. Unlucky for you."

He didn't want to put down the word that he saw he could, didn't even want to think about the word. Walter huffed impatiently. "Lunch is in ten minutes Einstein. It's mac and cheese, don't make a dying man eat cold mac and cheese."

F.O.R.G.I.V.E.

"14, double letter on the F, triple word score – 54."

"That's just dumb luck, I gave you the V. Best score you've gotten all game."

"I'm out of tiles – what do you have?"

F.A.I.T.H.

"11. I win by … let me figure this …"

"I thought you were in a hurry."

"Shut up. I win by 27. That can't be right, I must have won by at least twice that."

"Maybe your math isn't as good as your spelling."

"My math is just dandy. I was working out simultaneous equations while you were still shitting in diapers." He sighed. "At least I'm not doing that." He shoved at the board, dislodging the tiles. Discernible patterns, familiar words, sense, meaning, disintegrated in a second. How easily everything fell apart.

"You coming to lunch?"

"Nah, not hungry."

"You should be, you should eat, you're getting scrawny."

"I'll clear up here and then go and get some air."

"Can't live on fresh air."

"Don't worry about me, I won't starve."

"Suit yourself. You'll stop by later before you leave?"

"Sure. Maybe I'll beat you at chess after we do meds."

Luka bent over the table and started to gather up the tiles, not noticing that Walter lingered.

"Hey – you okay?"

He didn't look up. "I'm fine. Go and eat." He picked at the tiles one at a time, working through the alphabet.

Anguish

Betrayal

Confusion

Despair

Excrutiating

Grief

Hurt

I – where was I when she was slipping out of her clothes and into Moretti's arms, Moretti's bed? Insignificant, invisible, immaterial.

"You'll be here all day if you do it like that. Here." Walter thrust his cane at him and picked up the board, tipping the jumble of tiles into the box. "I'll see you later."

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.

Well that was bullshit.

There are times when words turn into sticks and stones, into knives with blades so sharp that at first you don't even feel them. The point at which thought crystalises into words is the point of no return. When a patient's family looked at you and waited, they knew, they must know, from the look in your eyes and on your face, they knew what you were about to say, but until the words actually left your mouth there was still hope, still a little glimmer of belief – until your words extinguished it. It was no different here. They all knew it was coming, the families, some growing impatient and trying not to show it, some trying desperately not to acknowledge it, but when the time came, when he had to make the call in the middle of the night to say they should get here quickly or that it was over and they'd missed the final curtain, well, there was still the hitch in the breath, still the sob or the silence or the clearing of the throat. They were still somehow surprised that they were hearing the words, even though they'd rehearsed hearing them times without number.

He'd thought he'd prepared himself for the words, formulated scenarios that included her picking up a stranger in a bar, maybe even a succession of strangers, or some guy from radiology, had heard her voice in his head stumbling over those words. Because he knew, in his gut, he knew that there would be a guy in there somewhere.

But when the words came, when they made it real, when she breathed life into them, he realized he hadn't been ready at all, had on some level been hoping that what she'd been ashamed of was fouling up at work, falling over in the street, throwing up on the El. Expecting the worst didn't soften the blow. Moretti, Moretti of all people, after all the times she'd joked with him about the new guy, called him Mussolini, grouched about his methods, said how much she preferred the guy who had the job before.

All those calls and again he felt the impotent rage start to simmer. In all those calls there were words that weren't said, words that should have been said, words that would have saved them. Why didn't she say something, why didn't she just fucking say something?

That was the real betrayal. Not the taking of the first drink, not the fucking some other guy, but the fact that in between those two things she hadn't told him what she'd fallen into, hadn't given him the chance to throw her a lifeline, had in fact refused the lifeline offered by Janet and had instead decided – _decided - _to swim out further, to swim out past the point of no return into currents she knew would pull her under, never stopping to consider – oh God, he hoped she hadn't considered it - that she would take him and Joe down with her.

Decided not to say the words.

And when he got back – he stopped, closed his eyes against the searing humiliation he felt whenever remembered that.

That first night he'd known something was wrong but she lied and lied and lied and because he'd wanted to believe her he had. He felt a physical pain in his gut when he recalled begging her to talk to him, feeling like he was hanging on by a thread, disgusted by how pathetic he sounded to his own ears, disgusted by how pathetic she sounded in return.

Well, she talked alright after she'd had her month in rehab, she talked while Joe slept in his old room in his father's house, Joe who had kept him sane while he was in Croatia waiting, waiting, waiting for the word to be made flesh, Joe who she'd put into a car while she was wasted, Joe who she'd left with babysitters while she drank and while she opened her mouth and her arms and her legs for Moretti.

For a few moments he'd struggled to understand, remembering talking to the man, laughing with him, shaking his hand shaking his fucking, filthy –

If she'd shut up, just kept quiet he might have made it through, but she went on and on about how hard it was for her to tell him this, how sorry she was, how low she'd been, how lonely, drunk off her ass. If she'd said that she knew how hard it was for him to hear it all – even though she didn't, couldn't – he may still have stood a chance but her words melted into one long squalid litany of her own sorrow and in the end he'd stopped her mouth with his own, not gentle, just needing her to shut the fuck up. And the nightmare went on as she made a grab for him as he tried to leave her. Wherever his limit lay, he passed it right there, pushing her against the wall, his hands on her. You settle on a meaningless fuck to bang away the pain, is that the way of it? Well OK then.

It was her who stopped it, her hand on his face, her voice in his ear speaking his name, and a tender desperation in that voice broke through, and he let her go.

"Now we can both be ashamed" he'd said, and he hated her even more for adding shame to the toxic mixture of feelings already corroding him.

And they had been corroding him. He'd seen her off to rehab confident that he could do it, that he could help her do this alone. It had been bitterly cold when they buried Josip and he was aware of Niko looking worriedly at him, filling in another funeral in his mind's eye, not knowing that in fact Luka wasn't seeing those three coffins at all, not knowing that right here, as he held Joe in his arms, the nearest the little boy would ever get to his grandfather, right there was the point at which the iron started to enter his soul.

Joe was growing so fast. He'd missed his first steps, he'd missed so much and the filthy fucking irony of it was that after all that he hadn't been there when Josip died. He had so wanted him to see, to hold Joe, to meet Abby, for him to know that he'd found his fresh start; he'd been so angry when his father had shaken his head, closed his mind to the possibilities of treatment in the US, and it didn't matter that Luka had known all along that he was right. The unbearable truth was that it was too late, that there would be no summer holidays when Joe would get to know his grandfather, the unbearable truth was that he had reconnected with Niko only in order for them to usher their father from this world to the next.

And he'd time to think, and with every day that passed his resentment and hurt had grown, flourishing, thriving in the fertile ground of his imagination and her silence.

He didn't remember the precise moment that he'd decided to go back. He wasn't even sure at what point he'd decided to quit County, or even why. What he knew when he saw her in rehab, before she'd turned and seen him, was that he needed to be the one making some decisions and that he needed her to know it. Coburn wouldn't talk to him, no, it was all about Abby, all about what she needed to do for herself. Well fuck that, he'd make one last attempt to get it from the horse's mouth.

He knew himself too well to think that she didn't still have enormous power over him; he knew that even now, if she'd tell him, just tell him, however bad it was, he would once more exist as something other than a bystander to the carnage. He would have something concrete on which to focus instead of this nameless dread. His mind conjured up his earliest days at County when he'd quietly defied Green and Weaver to take a little girl to see her intubated mother. It was better for her to know, however bad it was, rather than to imagine and weave monsters out of those imaginings. He wondered bitterly why no-one would do him the same favour.

Nothing. Did she understand at all? It appeared not. She was disappointed that he hadn't brought Joe and in that moment recognized the power he had over her. If she didn't give a shit about him she surely cared about Joe. The desire to hurt her, and the suspicion that Joe was the only means he had of doing it was irresistible. She wanted reassurance that they'd pick up where they left off. Well she wasn't the only one looking for reassurance – and if he couldn't have it then neither would she. One more chance, he gave her one more chance to cough it up but she didn't; she looked almost bored, irritated by his suggestion that she might just want to tell him the whole truth, as though she didn't understand why it mattered. He hated her then and hated that all he wanted to do was wrap her in his embrace and make it all go away.

And still, once she got out of rehab, he'd been anxious to see her, on tenterhooks as he waited at the airport, his heart speeding up a little as he saw the familiar profile, not able to keep the smile from his face as she walked into his arms, not able to keep his blood form singing as she clung to him.

He glanced up to see Walter's steady gaze on him from the window. He had the feeling that the old man saw through him as plainly as he saw through that window, saw quite clearly that his working there was about getting away from something, that he was replacing one set of people who he treated but passed on to other carers with another who he treated and who passed on literally.

And he was right; he was right too when he'd said that you can't fix everything. The unbearable truth was that some things were beyond fixing and maybe some things just weren't worth the effort.


End file.
